Tropical Storm Karen's march to Gulf Coast stalled

The Associated Press

October 6, 2013 12:37:15 AM

NEW ORLEANS -- Tropical Storm Karen stalled Saturday afternoon in its move toward the Gulf Coast but still threatened to bring heavy winds and high rains. Officials from Louisiana to northwest Florida acknowledged that the storm was weakening and sent some emergency workers home, but urged residents to be cautious.

"The storm's weakened, and that's good news, but we're not out of the woods yet," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a news conference. He warned of likely high winds, street flooding and power outages.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Saturday afternoon that Karen hadn't moved for a few hours. It had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph, making it a weak tropical storm. Forecasters expect it to resume its northerly track and be near or over portions of southeastern Louisiana on Saturday night and Sunday. It could speed up into Sunday and is likely to pass near the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama that day.

Rick Knabb, the director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, noted that "there is still the potential for some locally heavy rainfall and for some storm surge in coastal areas, but the magnitudes of those hazards greatly reduced. We still could see 1 to 3 feet of coastal flooding due to storm surge in some spots."

In low-lying Plaquemines Parish, La., officials changed an evacuation order from mandatory to voluntary Saturday afternoon. More than 80 evacuees from the area, at the state's southeastern tip, had taken refuge at a public shelter, which would remain open Saturday.

They gathered in an auditorium where they rested on cots, watched for weather updates on TV and chatted outside on the front steps.

"I don't really know what to expect, but they told us to evacuate, so we got out," said Dana Etienne, 27, of Phoenix, La., who was at the shelter with her three young children.

Coastal authorities closed flood gates along waterways that could be affected by tides driven by the storm. In New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continued closing barriers designed to keep surge out of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal -- scene of catastrophic flooding in 2005 when flood walls failed during Hurricane Katrina.

Col. Richard Hansen of the corps said more gates along various canals could be closed, and warned boaters not to get caught on the wrong side of those gates "If there is a gate in the system, it may not be open when you decide to come back in," Hansen said. "So it's time to pull your boats out of the water and quit fishing."